A sordid retrospective of creative directing while female

Or: coming to terms with microagressions of the immature masculine in the elder millennial workforce

This article was originally published on the @creativeonion network.

I’m loathe to blame problems I face on my gender. I try to judge the world around me based on individual experiences rather than generalized assumptions, and generally give people the benefit of the doubt that we’re all working towards reasonable and nuanced equity of opportunity. Because things are complicated.

But that “judgement of charity,” as my Evangelical roots called it, has also had a tendency to manifest as naivety at times, which has gotten me into trouble. In my experience in Evangelical circles, the “judgement of charity” is a euphemistic way of teaching parishoners to give church leadership and influential members a pass for passive aggressive and borderline bad behavior — for what one might call “microagressions”. It turns out that giving the “benefit of the doubt”, in the corporate world, may not be so different.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my career arc over the last ten years. Because, despite a really quite brilliant work portfolio, collection of skills, and professional network, I find myself entirely professionally stuck. Everyone I meet loves the idea of a freelance creative director; many will happily ask to “pick my brain” on the spot pro bono when they discover my title and expertise. But few will hire me to do this work; fewer still will pay me my full rate; and of that slim margin, I’ve not been able to find one in the last two years who can manage to fill their invoice within 90 days without receiving a series of threatening emails.

Figuring out why has been like a puzzle I just can’t quite solve. 

It’s difficult, because there are a number of variables in the situation, many of which are idiosynchratic to me and choices I’ve made. I’ve been fairly adamant about remaining an independent contractor rather than settling into an in-house position, which is a specific decision that’s inevitably led to a more sporadic professional existence. And yes, choosing to bill myself as a higher level creative/brand director in these latter years rather than as a straight copywriter or marketing specialist has narrowed my prospects. I won’t work for $50/hour anymore. But even so: that’s part of the business game of leveling up, and there’s ample demand for high level creative services in the US and in my corner of the midwest. Plenty of local professionals are able to make a living as freelance creative directors/brand strategists. I know: other brand strategists are referred to me unsolicited by my network all the time (all of whom have been male, to date).

And yet there’s me.

Like gaslighting, I find it a difficult situation to articulate to others when I attempt to do so. I find myself listing off an endless chain of anecdotes, each one an inconsequential pearl in isolated form, but together forming a chain which has weighted my career as a creative director down to a standstill. 

Sure, there are a lot of local market factors. West Michigan — aka Dutch West Michigan — is known for being both literally and figuratively “Dutch”, in that many people here are of Dutch descent, and in the derogatory sense of businesspeople who hold tightly onto their purse strings. I don't like to adhere to stereotypes, but I’ve worked with a lot of Dutch business owners, and I have to say that my experience has largely proven this stereotype to be true. This makes freelancing particularly rough, as independent vendors are an area local business owners tend to want to recoup savings. The opposite, ironically, tends to be the case with agency vendors. I’ve watched businesses which begrudge me as an independent contractor $4,500 to write an entire 25 page website’s information architecture, branded and SEO copy, while they happily write a check for $10,000 in one sitting to a well-known local branding agency which has tweaked their logo’s color palette and rounded a few corners. #truestory

Being an independent contractor means, in general, having to work four times as hard and getting paid one quarter as much as the agencies around you which do competing work — unless you slash your rate and go for the bulk agency contracts, which I’ve done before but don’t prefer these days. I always end up getting sucked into business development when I’m working for agencies — without the commission — and I want to focus on creative directing, rather than development. 

And creative directing isn’t as warm and fuzzy as it sounds. It can actually be quite an abrasive role. Creative directing means being the keeper of the mission and vision, and having the knowledge and expertise of how best to communicate it; it means saying which ideas and vendors make the cut and which don’t, it means giving people specific instruction and expecting them to follow through, and it means pushing back when the product isn’t just right. It puts people in the position of having to put their egoes aside and act like adults.

It doesn’t always make people feel nice. And people generally expect women (especially an attractive woman) to make them feel nice. 

As I say: it’s complicated. The bounty hunter’s road is always a rough and lonely one. 

Even so. There’s something more to my utter standstill than my high client standards and a tightfisted Dutch business community. I mean; I teach branding in my adjunct coursework at a respected local design college. It feels like something more is afoot.

Lately, a string of incidents have helped me narrow in on another pattern — one which I’ve avoided focusing on. Because I’d really rather not. 

I really, really didn’t want to point a finger at sexism. I wanted to blame myself, if I’m being honest. And there’s plenty of that happening already.

But more and more, I’m realizing that so much of what I’ve been throwing myself up against has been, in fact, a very subtle, passive-aggressive form of sexism — specifically as it manifests on female creative professionals within a largely generation X and elder millennial workplace. It’s a behavior pattern I see come from both men and women alike.

Strange that this group would give me the hardest time with sexism, I know. We usually assume that our Xers and elder millennials are well behaved when it comes to gender equity. But as an empirically attractive young woman doing business in the midwest’s manufacturing hub, I have to say that boomers have been the easiest demographic to work with by far. Mostly men, they’re no-nonsense, transparent, and direct. Not one has made an inappropriate comment, nor anything resembling a pass towards me. Maybe it’s just our old fashioned midwestern good manners. Boomers can be overtly condescending to me from time to time, but it’s really the Xers and fellow elder millennials whose passive aggressive, unconscious sexism have made life as a female creative professional suck, in a lot of ways.

The best way to explain is to tell you a few stories.

~~~

In 2012, I became the in-house creative director for a startup urbal real estate development firm called 616 Lofts and Development. This position was the culmination of over two years I spent creating the brand and building it out as an independent contractor. Starting in 2010, I contracted out the logo, and built the website on Wordpress myself. I created and implemented a robust social media and content marketing strategy which eventually morphed into full out brand journalism. By 2013, I was blogging for our local business journal on behalf of my employer, and our property management website was ranking within the top five organic results on Google for “downtown apartments grand rapids” — the only non-aggregate website to rank on page one for the term. My employer won our business journal’s Newsmaker of the Year in 2013. By 2014, I’d used our website as a funnel to build an apartment waitlist of over 2,000 emails. Our property management company had less than 90 units at the time.

My work was, in a word, superb.

But that didn’t stop a slew of really weird things from happening. 

First, there was the local agency that immediately came on the scene and attempted to eat my lunch. Their attempt wasn’t so surprising as was the fact that my employer allowed them to make the attempt. A month or two after I was formally hired in-house (having been my employer’s sole creative vendor to that date), our “director of comminity”, Monica, who had been given supervision over both me and our company credit card, accepted a proposal for an audit from an established, small local creative agency called the Image Shoppe. The resulting audit gave our brand the grade of “A” — the highest grade they’d ever given a client, they said. Their subsequent recommendations were, aside from a minor tweak to the logo, that my salary of $60K be cut in half, that $35K to be given to the agency as an annual retainer, and that my title should be reduced to marketing specialist as I worked under the direction of their team’s creative director. Creative directors, they had explained to Monica, typically have over 20 years’ industry experience in a wide range of different mediums. I was only 27; my experience simply didn’t justify my title — but they were happy to work with me to help train me in that direction.

Monica presented these findings to me in a meeting matter of factly, then cheerfully asked me what I thought.

“What exactly are they offering to do, on a monthly basis, for $35,000 per year?” I asked. “Have they provided a specific breakdown of what they’ll be implementing, or benchmarks they’ll be aiming to hit?”

No such information had been provided. It was simply a vague retainer for “brand management”, including “all brand assets”.

I paused for a beat, breathed to slow my accelerated heart rate, and shifted up into cutthroat business gear.

“Well, if you want to make that move and put them on retainer, that’s up to you,” I said, “but I can tell you that I won’t be taking any pay cuts on their account. I’m happy to go back to working with you hourly as an independent contractor — but you should know that my rate has doubled since my last billing. As for my professional opinion of their proposal; I would never pay such a large sum of money for such a vague outline, with such little assurance that they understand your goals.”

I came to find out later that there was some distant family connection between the agency’s owner and my boss. Some handshake arrangement had been made at a bar in the dawn of 616’s founding — before my boss had enough cash to pay for an agency retainer. Apparently, neither my boss Derek nor the agency’s owner thought that the two and a half years of brand positioning I had done warranted a re-evaluation of that initial agreement. Not until I firmly said “no” to the Image Shoppe’s proposal.

I did eventually agree to hire them to redevelop our website, under my close creative direction. They (and I) did a lovely job, once everybody’s bruised egoes were out of the way. We later became friends, or at least frenemies of sorts, the agency owner and I. Because what the fuck else are you going to do in a little big city?

But yeah. That whole thing was pretty fucking…just weird, man.

Then there was the whole development boy’s club. And the banking club. It took me months and months of begging to get our development team to introduce me to some of our banking vendors, in order to run brand journalism on our community banking allies. 

It probably doesn’t help that dealmaking is a heavy drinking culture, and that I’m not really much for drinking. But that’s another subject for another time.

When our brand started getting really visible — hitting the papers, hitting search engine pages, showing up in social feeds — and the company started to take on a few additional hires, a common mantra around the office became “we’re all creative here”. It was a sentiment which came from my boss; “Marjorie isn’t the only one here who’s creative” is a phrase I heard him say often.

I could point out that among the higher education degrees represented, mine was the only Bachelor’s of Arts — not to mention the only one majoring creative writing. But that would be…well, it would be bitchy, wouldn’t it?

It was meant to be a rallying call to the team to be innovative — of sorts. But each time, it felt like a direct devalidation of my skills. Like when my property management colleagues would copy the way I ran my personal social profiles, then would offer me unsolicited critiques from their friends in marketing school on how I managed our Instagram account. Like how they were always happy to take credit for my work the moment my back was turned. Like crabs in a pot, pulling on me each time I ascended.

If you follow the link above, you’ll read my former co-workers discussing how they collaboratively came up with 616’s annual end of year charitable giving lists as part of the company’s charitable giving strategy. For context: I conceived and wrote both of these lists as part of my content marketing campaign, entirely on my own, with neither interest nor input from the rest of the 616 “tribe”. 

One time, our business therapist visited us to “check in”. A young boomer gentleman of undoubtedly Dutch descent, “Dr. Andy” cheerfully sat across from me and told me that as a communicator, I was “the cryer” of the group — “the herald,” and that I liked to be noticed and the center of the scene. 

“I…am an introvert,” I said. “You gave me my Myers-Briggs test. Remember?”

“Mmm, are you sure? Just look at your shirt!” he said, clearly pleased with his insightful observation. I was wearing a magenta sweater.

I had no witty response. I to this day have no idea how to respond to that.

I never did get an allocated budget for marketing and comminications. I simply had to beg Monica for cash on each individual purchase transaction. This inevitably led to problems and extra work on my end. On the one occasion I brought my concerns about this to Monica, and pointed out how it led to a lot of frustration, time waste, and uncertainty on my end, I was told roundly that it wasn’t her job to manage my emotions. End of discussion.

Just weird stuff. I could go on with 616 — but I’ll stop there, because what’s the point? There’s so much else.

A few years later, when I was building back up my freelance clientele, I explored the possibility of partnering with a fellow small business vendor, who excelled in project management (which I hate). The arrangement didn’t work out for a number of reasons, and we went our separate ways, with me tooling up to do boutique PR work. Shortly after, he sent me a request for quote for a PR launch campaign for a client. I quoted him a base of $1,200 for discovery, writing a release, and manual local distribution (read: to my own personal network of media contacts). He was aghast at my quote, and responded, “you know that’s the same amount as a local agency would charge, right?”

“The smaller agencies, yes, I’m aware,” I replied, “that’s my benchmark for competition, because that’s my level of experience and the breadth of my network. Why would you expect my rate to be significantly lower?”

We never did figure out how to see eye to eye on rates. 

Later, when I was building out a stable of contractors to support larger campaigns, my lead creative vendor expressed clear romantic intent towards me. I kindly but firmly made it clear that I wasn’t interested in exploring a romantic relationship with him. Shortly after, he suddenly skipped out on his workload, and left me holding the bag for over $2,000 of unwritten copy, for which I’d already paid him, citing stress as his reason.

Earlier last year, I reunited with an old client and former employer, at his request. He had acquired a new (male, fellow elder millennial) business partner who had a tiny boutique marketing agency, and his partner couldn’t quite crack what his “secret sauce” had been before. All roads in their discussion pointed back to me, and my previous work. So his partner had suggested bringing me onboard.

That red flag should have been enough. The reason we parted ways initially was because he failed to see that I was the source of his “secret sauce”. His new business partner had to point it out to him. Clearly, the disconnect in our relationship hadn’t been bridged.

But I really wanted a stable client to build out a decent income, and to build some street cred as a creative gunslinger so I could ease my husband out of his soul crushing corporate job. So I tried to strike a deal that would make sense. Tried to apply lessons from the past. 

No titles were given or acknowledged, though, and with no authority to direct his business partner’s creative team, it was an ambiguously uphill battle. The boys club eeked in again.

My invoice lagged. First a month, then two, then three. I sent friendly reminders. I sent more friendly reminders. When my unpaid balance reached over $5K, I pulled the plug on additional work until the balance had been paid up. It was 1/3 paid up three weeks later. Feeling quite foolish, I threw in the towel.

Just a few weeks ago, I was corresponding with a longtime friend and colleague about a mutual client — an account I’d brought my friend in on to refine our logo and visual branding elements. He was trying to sell me a web development vendor after I’d clearly told him I had vendors lined up and not to send me any referrals. In a comment meant to defer project ownership to me (which was already quite evident), he said “I know you’re project coordinator, so of course I’ll send the introduction to you first…”

He followed up with an email introduction to his vendor, who quickly followed up with me with an offer to grab coffee and discuss the development project.

Creative director. My title has never been project coordinator, nor project manager, nor anything of the sort.

He graciously apologized and backed down when I pointed out his error. But I did have to directly point out his error, aggressively, and state my offense to get him to back down. It’s worth noting that this individual is a genuinely good person, professional, and friend — yet even he has clearly fallen susceptible to the same patterns of disrespect and condescension as I’ve experienced with so many of our peers.

If I had a dime for every time a male colleague had asked me, when reviewing a final branding deliverable of mine, “if I’ve really thought about the ‘why’ behind its design?” I’d be able to take myself on a date to a Michelin star restaurant.

My colleagues, and often even clients, just seem to have a hard time acknowledging my credibility and authority as a creative director.

I have a female Xer client who’s had not dissimilar experiences with her independent clientele. A former C suite executive, business attorney, and respected entrepreneurial coach, she never lacks for demand for her skills. Getting clients to commit to implementing her recommendations, to pay retainers upfront, or even to pay her invoices at all, has been another story. When she told me how much her clients had racked up in unpaid invoices over her last four quarters, my jaw hit the table.

She and I couldn’t help but share a few moments to commiserate. And, of course, to take inventory, and to retool in directions which will lead to us getting compensated appropriately for our skills and expertise.

One of my most beloved mentors — an absolute baller in her field, and in life in general — has found her female industry (mostly Xers and millennials) colleagues to be the worst culprits of these kinds of microagressions. Mostly by exclusion. Whether it’s because they feel threatened, or are discriminating against her based on her (boomer) age is hard to tell. Like my situation, it’s just kind of weird and inexplicable. And it aligns with some my own experiences: the worst backstabbings of my career have come from my female colleagues.

Men, it would seem, don’t have a corner market on misogyny.

It’s a bleak inventory to take — you can see why I’ve been avoiding it. Suffice to say that a full inventory would take much more time than either I or my readers care to take here, and way too much disclosure. And as much as you, dear reader, are trying to ascertain exactly what’s wrong with me in all of this, I can assure you’ve I’ve been trying to figure that out, too.

I’ve been studying a lot of Jungian psychology regarding masculine and feminine archetypes lately — you know: the ego, the self, the animus, the anima, the four stages of adolescent development and the four stages of mature development.

In Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette’s book King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine, the authors argue that patriarchy is in fact not a manifestation of mature masculinity, but of stunted, immature masculinity. It’s a kind of pathologized masculinity, if you will. And it’s extremely damaging. It’s this immature, pathologized masculinity which seeks to dominate, bully, self-aggrandize, damsel chase, and vie for power beyond the responsibility they’re capable of handling. It obfuscates the truth and inflates its own importance out of hidden insecurity. It punishes individual women for not providing the nurturing of the divine archetype of the “mother goddess”. This is the pathology which has seized our current culture, and which torments us all — men and women alike.

Spoiler alert: the “hero” archetype is actually an immature masculine archetype. Its mature iteration is the “king,” which is a source of generosity, nourishment, protection, and even self-sacrifice. The hero has no idea what to do with the damsel once he saves her, because he is immature, and has yet to allow his immature ego die to give birth to the mature masculine king.

I’m just beginning to dig in to feminine archetypes and pathologies. I know the Maiden/Mother/Crone archetypes come in to play somehow, and I’m looking forward to reading Jungian scholar Helen M. Luke’s The Way of Woman: Awakening the Perennial Feminine. 

But even without that research, I think that Moore and Gillette’s point is an apt one. Keeping in mind, of course, that we all carry aspects of both the masculine and feminine within us, just as we do our conscious and shadow sides.

I don’t think the patriarchy is bullshit, nor do I think it’s over. But I do think that it’s not what most people think it is. Patriarchy isn’t masculinity. Its antidote isn’t simply femininity. This isn’t about men versus women. This is about all of us being pathologized to operate within an immature, destructive mode of existence. This is about all of us needing to learn to grow up — literally.

The business world, more than in any other sector of our society, I’d say, is guilty of this pathology.

And yeah; I’d have to say, based on my experience, that it makes it damn near impossible to do business as an empathetic woman in the creative industry. But beyond the impact it has on me, and on women, think about the impact it has on society as a whole. 

Our economy is being run by schoolyard bully rules. Is it any wonder everybody’s upset all the time?

I don’t have an easy fix — not for me, nor for society. For me, the solution is to retool my energy into paths that make more sense. Towards my own endeavors and projects, for example — COSGRRRL, and my @creativeonion network. As my husband points out, these have largely lacked the full backing of my skills and capabilities, as I’ve been too busy putting these energies into client projects. I think it’s time for me to put my faith in my own work — to step into the role of capable Mother, rather than the damsel Maiden who requires rescuing.

As for society, I think we all need to stop normalizing the pathology around us. American clinical psychologist Dr. Ramani Durvasula has expressed her views on the sociopathy of big business culture quite clearly.

“You show me a single CEO or world leader who’s not a narcissist, and I’ll give you a buck,” she told an interviewer.

The underlying point is that it’s not masculinity which lies at the root of the problem — it’s immaturity. Childish fear and ego.

My personal and professional opinion is that it’s high time we all grew up.